Men's Pair (M2-) - Final

Having the honour of the fastest time from yesterday’s semifinals was the Dutch duo of Roel Braas and Mitchel Steenman. Usually Braas is in the single sculls, but he’s come into the pair to fill in for Steenman’s injured partner. At the start it was Giovanni Abagnale and Vincenzo Abbagnale of Italy 1 that had the lead. They took off at 52 strokes per minute. But high rating wasn’t enough. By the first 500m mark Matthew Tarrant and Callum McBrierty of Great Britain had the lead. This lead did not last long as Braas and Steenman pushed though to take the lead with Abagnale and Abbagnale chasing hard.

As the last 500m came into view the Dutch looked in control and very much together despite their short time together. Italy 1 was working hard to overtake the Dutch with the crowd support behind them as Great Britain slipped off the pace. In the final sprint Braas and Steenman showed power and grace to cross the line in first, followed by Abagnale and Abbagnale (the one with the famous rowing dad) and Jack Hargeaves and Nicholas Wheatley of Australia coming through in third.

Results: NED, ITA1, AUS, ITA2, USA, GBR2

Mitchel Steenman – NED – gold 

“It was nice to be back on top, even though some boats were still missing. We came together 2.5 weeks ago when Braas came out of the single. We are really happy to win the pair and it is going really well so far.”

Vincenzo Abbagnale (stroke) – ITA – silver

“It was one of the first races we have done together at this level. We see it as the starting point to continue. We knew we had competition that have been here for a long time, we are very young.”

Jack Hargreaves (bow) – AUS – bronze

“We knew there were lots of strong boats, but we executed our race plan. We stayed calm and are happy with the bronze medal.”

B-final

Germany 2 of Peter Kluge and Alexander Egler got out in front at the start and held it through to the end. They were challenged in the first half by Switzerland before the Swiss ran out of steam and slipped to the back of the field. Then Hungary made a fine second-half effort to move on the Germans and they nearly made it. But Kluge and Egler had enough to move to 41 strokes at the end and hold off Hungary.

Results: GER2, HUN, BLR, ARG, CZE, SUI